iOS 6, iPhone 5, and How it will Affect Your Business

iOS 6, iPhone 5, and How it will Affect Your Business

Last week the much-anticipated iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 was released. In general the reviews of the new iPhone have been excellent, however, there is growing concern over iOS 6 and it’s new Apple Maps.

For most Apple Maps are a sore disappointment; with missing local information and some pretty interesting renderings.

How Apple Maps Will Affect your Local Business

When Google Maps was integrated into iOS search queries brought back a wealth of information and that information was based on Google’s search index. Apple’s maps is now based on Yelp.com which, unfortunately is not nearly as robust. There is a lot of work needs to be done on that front but with the Apple Maps getting it’s information via crowdsourcing I anticipate rapid improvements.

Now that Yelp is the source of all local search results things are going to be very different. If you, or your SEO company have done a lot of work on generating good reviews and citations for your Google Business listing they are still going to be help; but not to the 35 million iPhone users who will be using Apple Maps.

Obviously, this is great news for Yelp which is probably seeing record high queries now that it’s service is now baked into iOS 6. Not so long ago Yelp reviews were being pulled into Google Places listings. It will be interesting to see how Yelp evolves to adapt.

Word on the street is the Google might be developing a Google Maps for the iPhone just like they did with the YouTube app (another app that was removed in iOS 6) .

What Now?

Times-are-a-changin and so will the strategies for showing up in local search for iPhone users. If your business has not done so now it the time to claim your business on Yelp.com.